Why Play a Fighter? (DND/Pathfinder)

[Thespianus]

Isn't the Imperial tonne 2000 pounds while the metric tonne is 2200? Thus the metric tonne is heavier not the other way around?

Nope, not according to teh intarwebz:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_ton

[The Glyphstone]

I hate that whole reply that a UMD fighter isn't a fighter anymore. It's stupid. A wizard is a wizard because of what spells they use, how they approach combat. A wizard with all his spells isn't going to spend them getting into melee to make a full attack, but a fighter WILL use magic to get there.

A UMD fighter is using the "technology" of the world to deal with bigger and badder threats. Batman doesn't stop being Batman because he donned power armour to punch Darksied in the face. Fighters use their WBL to turn into Iron Man at epic.

The BMX bandit isn't so sucktastic when his BMX is a crazy technobike with machine guns and granade launchers with a bulletproof driver carriage. He's still popping wheelies and catwalking with all his BMX skills, its just now he's doing it at mach 4. Is a soldier any less of a soldier because he uses a grenade to kill 12 guys rather than shooting them all?
.

Those are wondrous items. The UMD equivalent to your analogy is BMX Bandit selling his BMX bike and buying a used Staff Of Angel Summoning from the pawn shop - by investing his limited resources (skill points and gold) into something he's entirely unsuited for, he just ends up as an inferior copy of his more powerful friend while unable to do what he was originally good at, for all that it was less good than said friend.

[Engine]

Is a soldier any less of a soldier because he uses a grenade to kill 12 guys rather than shooting them all?

Well...
Your post reminds me of a Jarhead scene, when Swoff and Troy after tiring training sessions are finally given a combat mission: kill two Iraqi officers. They're just about to kill their targets when a command officer arrives and calls in an air strike.

As a soldier, you could use a grenade. It's standard. But if you just call an airstrike everytime you need to kill someone, well, all of your hard training what's worth for?

A Fighter based around UMD is just a Scout Sniper throwing her sniper rifle into the trash bin and trying to be a combat pilot.

[ericgrau]

In pathfinder I keep going back to fighter often because I need 9 feats for some concept I want to play. In PF in particular you're at a feat every level. I've also found ranger and monk dips are good for squeezing out even more feats, if those classes or an ACF has the feat I want. I have a fighter 2 / monk 1 with 7 feats though I only needed 6 of them. Monk 1 gives 3, 2 of which were useful for the character. Gonna go monk 2 for evasion and another feat then back to fighter or maybe a ranger dip. 2-3 of my character concepts lately seem to be fighters that dip other classes. Because when you have something in mind that you want to play that doesn't already have a matching class you often need a lot of feats to do it.

If all you do is thwack things then you need a better concept or a DM with more interesting challenges. I'm forced to carry all sorts of backup gear. One concept that happened to have quick draw and rapid shot and I found myself forced using it to speed chuck alchemical weapons (purchased as a backup) in one fight even though that wasn't the build's intent. It doesn't necessarily require UMD (I know I only UMD on my charisma characters) but you should have all kinds of magic/alchemy on hand in a fantasy world. I'm gonna have to say the above analogy is pretty bad because not only can you use UMD for varied backup tactics when your focus is something else, it sucks as a main focus and AFAIK an odd-situation batman utility belt is the only use for UMD.

[navar100]

Open up your SRD - Pathfinder or 3.5, don't really care which. Look up "Erinyes". Check out her SLA's. See that Unholy Blight? How about the fly speed and composite bow?

How about third level wizard and cleric spells? Hold person, for example. How about first level for gems like Charm Person? Druid rocks with entangle and an animal companion, sorcerers light things on fire in a wide area....

You know what all this has in common? The fact that any monster with a positive intelligence modifier and the tiniest shred of combat experience is going to target the caster first, especially if they're a mobile or ranged combatant, since now the dude with the pointy stick can't hurt them in the first place but the caster can. And the problem doesn't change if you want to talk, say, Dire animals - is it easier to eat the dude covered in metal or the dude wearing robes?

As CR's get higher, monster intelligence scores and, frankly, number of SLA's also goes up. Many of these monsters either are spellcasters and thus know how pointless it is to wave a stick at them or possess the appropriate Knowledge to realize that the dude in no armor and pink hot pants has got to go.

That being said, there are (amusing) ways around this. But your statement that a warrior is an honest-to-god threat? That stops being true at level eight.

Just because a monster exists in the monster manual does not mean it appears in the campaign. Sometimes bad guys are other humanoids.

Fighters can make saving throws, even if it's Will.

Fighters using magic items is a feature, not a bug. A fighter using an item to fly is not a crime against gamedom.

While no spellcaster is ever obligated to cast a buff spell on a fighter, it is a good tactic to do so. It is not a wasted spell use. It's called teamwork. Since bad guys can make their saving throws, a spellcaster cannot guarantee his spells will win the day every day all the time without fail. Sometimes the bad guys will fail their saves such that the spellcaster wins the day with his spells alone. Hooray for the spellcaster. Other times the spellcaster is better off casting a buff spell on the fighter and letting him use his fighting skill to finish off the bad guy. As the levels progress many low level attack spells lose effectiveness, either because the effects are obsolete or the the bad guys almost always make their low DC saves. However, those low level buff spells are still useful. A Displacement on the Fighter indirectly boosts his hit points by 50% since he's hit half as often. Protection From Evil on the Fighter allows him to concentrate on the BBEG instead of the minions he Summoned.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Just because a monster exists in the monster manual does not mean it appears in the campaign. Sometimes bad guys are other humanoids.

Not often. Dragons, outsiders, elementals, aberrations, giants, and the lime vastly outnumber the humanoid enemies. And most DMs would rather use a dragonne than create a level 5 character that can challenge the party.

Fighters can make saving throws, even if it's Will.

Web still does a hindering effect if you succeed on your save. There's no saving throw to prevent the wizard from polymorphing into a dragon. And how are you going to hit the wizard if he's invisible? There's no save for Wall of Force either, and what about Maze?

Fighters using magic items is a feature, not a bug. A fighter using an item to fly is not a crime against gamedom.

No magic mart. And magic items are not class features.

Since bad guys can make their saving throws, a spellcaster cannot guarantee his spells will win the day every day all the time without fail.

See above about what I said for saving throws.

[Flickerdart]

Just because a monster exists in the monster manual does not mean it appears in the campaign. Sometimes bad guys are other humanoids.

And unless the bad guys are also all Fighters, they are going to be markedly superior because they have real class features.

Fighters can make saving throws, even if it's Will.

At level, say, five, a spellcaster can chuck DC 19-20 spells (10 + spell level 3 + 5-6 Int + Spell Focus). The fighter has a base Will save modifier of +1. He will fail these saves 90% of the time, 80% if he takes Iron Will. Sure, he has a better chance if he takes points away from the stats he needs, but now he's worse at doing his job of hitting things - and he's not going to have even odds of succeeding on this save unless he completely cripples his fighting ability doing so. DCs scale faster than saves, so this is only going to get worse.

Fighters using magic items is a feature, not a bug. A fighter using an item to fly is not a crime against gamedom.

Flying isn't the problem (except for how items of flying cost ridiculous amounts of money, so you can't fly for a good five or so levels after everyone else is doing it, and then you can't afford that magic sword or magic shield or magic armor or any other items you need to compensate for your lack of class features). The problem is making a meaningful non-full attack contribution to anything at all.

While no spellcaster is ever obligated to cast a buff spell on a fighter, it is a good tactic to do so. It is not a wasted spell use. It's called teamwork. Since bad guys can make their saving throws, a spellcaster cannot guarantee his spells will win the day every day all the time without fail. Sometimes the bad guys will fail their saves such that the spellcaster wins the day with his spells alone. Hooray for the spellcaster. Other times the spellcaster is better off casting a buff spell on the fighter and letting him use his fighting skill to finish off the bad guy. As the levels progress many low level attack spells lose effectiveness, either because the effects are obsolete or the the bad guys almost always make their low DC saves. However, those low level buff spells are still useful. A Displacement on the Fighter indirectly boosts his hit points by 50% since he's hit half as often. Protection From Evil on the Fighter allows him to concentrate on the BBEG instead of the minions he Summoned.

The difference here is that the fighter without the wizard sucks and dies. The wizard without the fighter can, oh, summon something, or dominate an opponent, or transform into a melee monster, or indeed use offensive spells on the enemy. His options aren't limited to begging the party caster for buffs so that he can contribute.

[Terazul]

The BMX bandit isn't so sucktastic when his BMX is a crazy technobike with machine guns and granade launchers with a bulletproof driver carriage. He's still popping wheelies and catwalking with all his BMX skills, its just now he's doing it at mach 4. Is a soldier any less of a soldier because he uses a grenade to kill 12 guys rather than shooting them all?

Well, let's give this same crazy technobike to the Angel Summoner. Now he's Angel Summoner AND has a crazy technobike.

As others have pointed out, Wealth By Level isn't a class feature because everyone gets it.

[Dalek-K]

Well, let's give this same crazy technobike to the Angel Summoner. Now he's Angel Summoner AND has a crazy technobike.

As others have pointed out, Wealth By Level isn't a class feature because everyone gets it.

Yes it is! Just like BAB, Saves, and Hp!...



The reason I play a fighter in 3.5 is so I can homebrew my own. Doing weird things like combining the monk and fighter into one class. Or making a new skill system just for the fighter (you auto suceed on skill checks based on your level... example you can jump 5 ft per level automatically)

Its fun to make your own fixes to the class :D

[ericgrau]

At level, say, five, a spellcaster can chuck DC 19-20 spells (10 + spell level 3 + 5-6 Int + Spell Focus). The fighter has a base Will save modifier of +1. He will fail these saves 90% of the time, 80% if he takes Iron Will. Sure, he has a better chance if he takes points away from the stats he needs, but now he's worse at doing his job of hitting things - and he's not going to have even odds of succeeding on this save unless he completely cripples his fighting ability doing so. DCs scale faster than saves, so this is only going to get worse.

So it's already devolving into a we hate fighters / let's duel the classes thread? At level 5 the fighter is making DC 13 saves against monster abilities which create an inconvenience and still leave him in the fight even if he fails. The wizard is using area spells or buffing party members including the fighter because his monster shut down spells aren't that good. For example hold person is single target, grants a new save every round, and 1/3 or more of monsters are immune; perhaps all of the meaningful foes are immune. I could talk about the rest but I'm not taking that derail bait.

It's generally assumed all of adventurer wealth goes into magic gear regardless of class, I don't see the issue there. Utility stuff is generally handled with cheap items.

[Flickerdart]

So it's already devolving into a we hate fighters / let's duel the classes thread? At level 5 the fighter is making DC 13 saves against monster abilities which create an inconvenience and still leave him in the fight even if he fails. The wizard is using area spells or buffing party members including the fighter because his monster shut down spells aren't that good. For example hold person is single target, grants a new save every round, and 1/3 or more of monsters are immune; perhaps all of the meaningful foes are immune. I could talk about the rest but I'm not taking that derail bait.

I was simply showing that the Fighter's ability to pass Will saves leaves much to be desired, contrary to what was claimed by the quoted poster. Additionally, the same poster suggested the use of humanoid enemies, which would presumably include spellcasting classes.

Aside from the spells available to class-level casters (such as Glitterdust) that would take a Fighter out of the fight, there are a number of monsters with similarly significant debuffs at that level, including Gibbering Mouthers, Greater Barghests, Mummies, Pixies, Shadow Mastiffs, Udoroots and Unbodied - and that's just from the SRD! All of these creatures inflict effects that either paralyze the target on a failed will save, send him running or outright turn him on his allies. These are hardly mere inconveniences.

[ericgrau]

He won't fail saves against monsters and even NPCs so often, which is much more relevant. As are the effects of wizard spells vs. monsters rather than PCs. Most spells and monster abilities won't take him out of the fight even on a failed save. Glitterdust issues come from lack of rules understanding where DMs send blind creatures around like chickens with their heads cut off. RAW actually says you roll a few listen checks, probably pass one or get enough info to make a good guess, and attack with a 50% miss chance. Less with blind fight. So you have a partial chance of being partially hampered. So it's not over for you but if you face a particularly challenge often there are ways to focus on it to improve your odds. These are the things that keep games interesting: varied overcomable challenges.

[Flickerdart]

Mummies have a DC16 paralysis attack that fires automatically, without an action, and paralyzes the Fighter for 1d4 rounds about 75% of the time. That's just one of the monsters I mentioned. How is the Fighter overcoming this special attack?

[Thespianus]

He won't fail saves against monsters and even NPCs though so often, which is more relevant. As are the effects of wizard spells vs. monsters rather than PCs. Most spells and monster abilities won't take him out of the fight even.

Color Spray up to level 4 does *exactly* that. Targets his weakest save, and leave him stunned för 1D4 rounds.

A single level 5 caster with Fly, Glitterdust and Color Spray will completely ruin a a trio of level 4 Fighters' day.

[ericgrau]

^ 1 round since he has 5 HD. At best it's break even. At worst it's a wasted turn.

Mummies have a DC16 paralysis attack that fires automatically, without an action, and paralyzes the Fighter for 1d4 rounds about 75% of the time. That's just one of the monsters I mentioned. How is the Fighter overcoming this special attack?

From not even getting hit by the slam 3/4 of the time. Or probably never getting attacked by it at all, as a CR 5 monster will be outnumbered by PCs in a level appropriate encounter. You have maybe 2 vs. 4 PCs. Disabling attacks that don't even hit that often aren't that effective in such a case. The mummy is better of trying it on a softer target if he can.

[Seerow]

He won't fail saves against monsters and even NPCs though so often, which is more relevant.

A level 20 fighter has a Reflex and Will Save somewhere around a +11-+15, and that +15 is assuming starting with a 12 in the stat and a +6 stat item that is doing almost nothing but increasing will saves.. aka not something particularly likely for your average Fighter. Meanwhile your average CR20 monster has save DCs of 27 A CR20 humanoid spellcaster is likely to have a save DC closer to 31-32. Your absolute best case scenario is the Fighter passing his saves about 40% of the time. It is entirely possible for him to be sitting at a 5-10% success rate.


Fighter saves are BAD.

[Flickerdart]

^ 1 round since he has 5 HD. At best it's break even. At worst it's a wasted turn.



From not even getting hit by the slam 3/4 of the time. Or probably never getting attacked by it at all, as a CR 5 monster will be outnumbered by PCs in a level appropriate encounter. You have maybe 2 vs. 4 PCs. Disabling attacks that don't even hit that often aren't that effective in such a case. Best to focus on a softer target if you can.

The slam? The slam has nothing to do with this - Aura of Despair triggers on sight. Unless your Fighter's strategy is to close his eyes and walk around blind all the time, he's being hit, and then is out of the fight for, well, most of the fight.

[ericgrau]

It's a high CR encounter which means the PCs outnumber it and whatever half the party saves keeps fighting while waiting a couple rounds for the first half to come to. Seriously it's 1d4 rounds that only happens once.

[Flickerdart]

It's a high CR encounter which means the PCs outnumber it and whatever half the party saves keeps fighting while waiting a couple rounds for the first half to come to.

So your solution for the fighter's crap saves is letting the other party members pick up the slack?

[ericgrau]

Unless he's the one that rolls high, then he's the one fighting. Especially on another save later, say an upcoming fort save. It's a CR-innapropriate encounter if the mummies aren't outnumbered, or else a final end game fight with a chance of TPK. Team up is expected. Try a CR 3-4 monster if you don't want team up.

Even the mummy is yet another example of a 50:50 shot of being temporarily inconvenienced in a level appropriate encounter. If you have to risk a TPK to claim the fighter's bad to play as... that's not showing anything. Quite the opposite.

[Seerow]

It's a high CR encounter which means the PCs outnumber it and whatever half the party saves keeps fighting while waiting a couple rounds for the first half to come to.

So that makes it right? It's okay for the Fighter to sit there defenseless against 2/3 of the spells in the game because you have other party members who will mop it up and wait for the effect to end? What if that effect was a straight up save or die? What if you're involved in an encounter with multiple high CR monsters (something like 10% of your encounters should be a total of level+4 or so, so you should run into something like 4 equal CR creatures occasionally), or even multiples of a slightly lower CR monster (a few CR18s with DC 25-26, which is still going to hit the Fighter the majority of the time).

Meanwhile the actually good classes have better base saves, secondary abilities that boost saves, or other defenses that make them outright immune to most effects. The Fighter? Yeah, it has none of these. It's a big pile of suck, but people want to believe that it's great at soaking up hits because it has a high HD and good AC, despite those being two of the most worthless defenses in D&D.

[Seerow]

Unless he's the one that rolls high, then he's the one fighting. Especially on another save later, say an upcoming fort save. It's a CR-innapropriate encounter if the mummies aren't outnumbered, or else a final end game fight with a chance of TPK. Team up is expected. Try a CR 3-4 monster if you don't want team up.

Even the mummy is yet another example of a 50:50 shot of being temporarily inconvenienced in a level appropriate encounter. If you have to risk a TPK to claim the fighter's bad... that's not showing anything.

Mummy is a fort save. ie the only thing a fighter is remotely good at. If you have a creature with a similar DC will save at the same level, you're looking at DC16 vs +1(base will save for a fighter 5), +1 (resistance) + 1 wisdom (being generous here, it's far more likely to have a +0 or even negative wis) for +3, or a 65% chance of failing.




And once again the point is that other classes that are considered good have other defenses to circumvent this. Either their chance of saving is significantly higher, or they have circumstantial bonus and immunities. They might not have their higher defenses against EVERYTHING, but they will have it against a SIGNIFICANTLY larger section of attacks than any fighter could ever hope for.

[ericgrau]

When people say things like that in video games instead of helping I stop saving them or quit and let them fight the big nasty that no one can handle alone by himself, and then he dies of course. 4 level 5 PCs don't fight 4 CR 5 mummies except as a final fight with risk of TPK; that's EL 9.

Level appropriate fights have a 50:50 shot of a temporary or partial problem. So what?

[Flickerdart]

Unless he's the one that rolls high, then he's the one fighting. Especially on another save later, say an upcoming fort save. It's a CR-innapropriate encounter if the mummies aren't outnumbered, or else a final end game fight with a chance of TPK. Team up is expected. Try a CR 3-4 monster if you don't want team up.

Even the mummy is yet another example of a 50:50 shot of being temporarily inconvenienced in a level appropriate encounter. If you have to risk a TPK to claim the fighter's bad to play as... that's not showing anything. Quite the opposite.

Uhm...what. The mummy isn't 50-50, because the Fighter does not have a +6 Will save. And you don't even need more than one mummy to screw the Fighter over, because one is enough. Also your repeated dismissal of paralysis as an "inconvenience" baffles me.

[ericgrau]

Level. Appropriate. Temporary 1/day effect.

[Seerow]

When people say things like that in video games instead of helping I stop saving them or quit and let them fight the big nasty that no one can handle alone by himself, and then he dies of course. 4 level 5 PCs don't fight 4 CR 5 mummies except as a final fight with risk of TPK; that's EL 9.

Yet that is exactly what the DMG says you should face 10% of the time. Maybe 5%. Do I need to dig out my DMG and quote the relevant section for you?

An on level encounter isn't even a risk. It's supposed to be a resource drain. You go into an on level encounter with no real fear of dying, just the DM hoping to make you waste spells and consumables. This is literally the definition of an equal CR encounter. And here we are looking at in such an encounter, about 30-50% of the time this simple encounter will still disable the fighter to the point where he cannot contribute anything to the fight except draining the party's resources. This is not an example of a well balanced class.

[Flickerdart]

Level. Appropriate. Temporary 1/day effect.

You realize that a combat lasts 3-4 rounds, right? Your Fighter is out for half of the encounter. Doing nothing. A dead weight. Useless. And then god forbid you meet a second mummy some other time, because hey, welcome to paralysis city, where you get to play Xbox while the real classes actually contribute to the encounter.

[ericgrau]

... you do realize the wizard has a 50:50 shot of failing the same ability obviously tailored to the fighter's weakness. And he's still back in the fight a couple rounds later. It's really not the greatest special ability. I suppose 50% of the time the wizard is also a useless piece of party space for not being active those couple rounds?

EDIT: 3-4 rounds, a faster than average fight, isn't likely against an above average fight difficulty with low damage that relies on debuffs and disables instead. This is reason #7 now that this is getting rather contrived. I suspect this will move on to #8 rather than addressing reasons 1-7 so I'm out.

[Flickerdart]

The Wizard has a 50% chance of being affected by something from a CR-appropriate encounter. This is normal. This is supposed to happen. A 75% failure chance is considerably worse.

[NNescio]

EDIT: 3-4 rounds, a faster than average fight, isn't likely against an above average fight difficulty with low damage that relies on debuffs and disables instead. This is reason #7 now that this is getting rather contrived. I suspect this will move on to #8 rather than addressing reasons 1-7 so I'm out.

One failed Reflex save later...

(Preferably with Save and Still Suck spells like Web and Sleet Storm.)